My "Trip" in London

Because of the weather that we had here earlier in the month, I had lost some time, so I picked up an extra London trip this past weekend. It was a Sunday layover, so there is not a lot open, but it was still nice to get away from the oppressive Texas heat (although it was funny that the news in London was calling their weather in the 80's a heatwave!)

When we arrived on Sunday, we parked right next to an Iran Air aging 747.

My co-worker Mary and I left the hotel around 4:30 with intentions of heading to the park, but we stopped at a pub on the way, The Gloucester Arms, and ended up having a beer there instead.

We met up with some other co-workers at 6:30pm and made our way to another pub called Churchill Arms, which is also the location of a great Thai Restaurant.

After dinner, we enjoyed the wonderful weather and made our way back to the hotel. I came across a rather amusing street sign on the way. The Captain thought he knew a shortcut, which proved to be a longcut (typical).

I made time for a morning workout the next day and then we headed back to the airport for our flight home. As we were boarding, we learned our plane was being taken out of service with a mechanical problem. We thought we were going to get another day to layover, but they found us another plane, so we were about two hours late. Right after take off, as we were beginning the first beverage service, I was pulling the cart and I tripped over a bag that a passenger left in the aisle and fell and landed right on my tailbone. When will people learn to keep those aisles clear!!!??

Honduras

I recently came back from an Airline Ambassadors Escort Trip. I went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to travel with a little girl named Kelin Artica to St. Louis. This is the third time I have traveled with Kelin. The first time she was a shy 7 year old who spoke no English and now she is an outgoing 11 year fluent in English and Spanish!

She has been receiving treatment in St. Louis for scoliosis. She is back in the states for the summer for some follow up treatment.

This trip was a little different from the others because our travel out of Honduras was on Continental Airlines. I had to travel the day before and spend the night in Tegucigalpa instead of just turning right around on the same flight and heading back to the states.

Cadena de Amor (Chain of Love), the medical organization that arranged for Kelin to come to America, is run by a great lady named Dr. Lilia Larios. She has a mission home that her medical teams stay at when they come to Honduras on medical mission trips, so I stayed there for the night.

Dr. Larios' brother was kind enough to take me around Tegucigalpa, so I could see some of the sights. We visited the Basilica Suyapa, the largest cathedral in Centra America, and he took me to a local restaurant called El Gordo, for some Honduran food. I had steak with chimichurri sauce (a mix of garlic, olive oil, and parsley) and some Honduran soda called "Mirinda" - kind of like Sunkist.

The next day, after breakfast at Burger King (how very Honduran!), Elizabeth, who works at Cadena de Amor, and I met up with Kelin and her parents, Santos and Edith. I was surprised to see how much she had grown up since our last trip. The airport was crazy busy, but we got checked in with Continental with no problem.

Our first flight was from Tegucigalpa to Houston was about three hours long. The flight was pretty full, but uneventful. Customs and Immigration in Houston is such a breeze compared to Miami, where everything is crazy and everyone is always stressed. We had about a hour and a half wait before our flight to St. Louis.

We arrived in St. Louis right on time and the Sly family, who host Kelin, were waiting outside security as usual. They were so happy to see her. It really takes special people who open their home up to a complete stranger and over the years Kelin has become a special part of their family.

I will fly back to St. Louis in August to travel with Kelin back to Honduras. They had a military coup right after I left, so I hope that things have stabilized by then.

I Got Crabs in Jamaica

No it's not what you think, but I will get to that in a moment. I just came back from a kind of crappy multi-leg Caribbean sequence. We were scheduled to layover in Montego Bay the first night and Miami the second night.

With weather in Miami, we got stuck in Orlando and Miami and ended up leaving several hours late with a full load of folks to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The hotel is an all-inclusive place but our layover was now down to the 8 hour minimum so we were not going to have any time to partake in the fun amenities (or so we thought). We meet the next morning in the lobby only to find out the flight is delayed because the plane is broken and the part is coming on the first Miami flight and isn't going to arrive until 11:30am. We go back to our rooms and change and then head down for breakfast since we still have our little red wristbands on and with the exception of booze, can enjoy anything on the property that we want. After breakfast, I snapped a few photos of the beach around the hotel.

Now for the crab story. When we got back to the airport that afternoon, the plane was repaired, but when the first officer was doing his walk around, he noticed a family of crabs had climbed up the wheel well and was trying to nest in a bundle of hydraulic lines. Sadly, they had to be sent to crab heaven.

The nice part of our delay was that when we got to Miami, we were so late, we did not have to do the turnaround to Guatemala City, so we just went to the hotel. I had planned to have dinner with my friend Sheetal, who I have known since my college days at UNF. She is now living in Miami. She came and picked me up and we drove down to South Beach for dinner and ice cream. We could not remember in what parking garage we left her car, and as we were trying to find it, with the help of the iPhone, a homeless man came up to us and started screaming "Mama" to her. Only in Miami are the homeless bilingual!

Much Ado About London

I had a great trip to London last week. It got off to a rocky start because of some wicked weather that rolled thru. Our scheduled flight was cancelled and we had to deadhead over on a later flight. It was packed, but I still managed to score an aisle seat. The First Officer got the middle seat next to me and he had a little temper tantrum about it, so after the meal service, I switched with him since I planned to sleep the rest of the flight.

We arrived in London around noon and got to the hotel around 1pm. Given that I had slept most of the way over, the arrival nap was not really needed, so I could hit the ground running.

I met up with a four other co-workers and went to lunch with them at a place called Eats. I mistakenly grabbed a bag of beet chips instead of potato chips and they tasted like death.

After lunch we walked down past Harrod's to a place called the Tattersill Tavern and had a pint. I had a Kronenburg 1664, which was a tad bitter, but still good. I bid my farewells to my co-workers and headed over to Sainsbury to do some shopping (Ladyfriend was requesting Original Source bath products - http://www.originalsource.co.uk/) and then on to Boots (my friend Terry in my card group likes Remegel, the best antacid ever made).

I dropped everything back at the room and then headed down to Piccadilly and the Criterion Theare to try and get a seat to The 39 Steps (http://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/), a play based on an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I was able to get a seat in the Upper Circle, the nice British way of referring to the Nose Bleed section for about 20 GBP.

I still had some time to kill so I thought I would do a little walking around and some people watching. I saw a group of high school kids who were wearing Nebraska t-shirts and they were obnoxious and all I could think about is that I hoped they were not on my plane the next day.

I walked over to Trafalgar Square and got some take-away food from a cafe and sat around the fountain to take in the scene. I saw the police pick up a man for pick pocketing, which was kind of interesting.

I got back to the theatre and made my way up to the high altitudes that was my seat. The play was great. A mix of suspense and comedy. The cast consisted of only four actors who played all 139 roles. Watching them switch between characters was hilarious.

After the play ended, around 10:30 or so (it was still light out), I made my way to the Underground and back to the area near the hotel. There is a 24 hour TESCO, a kind of mini supermarket, near the hotel and I got a few vittles for breakfast.

The flight home was OK. Since I had purchased the bath products, I was over my allotment for liquids, gels, and aerosols and had to check my bag. It's a bit unnerving to have the driver leave it out on the tarmac next to the plane just sitting there out in the open.

I actually slept for most of my break, and we landed right on time.

Inflight Haberdashery

When one has a digital camera and a passenger leaves a big sombrero in the forward closet, one can be certain that tomfoolery will ensue. This was on the way to San Juan after being on duty for 14 hours, so we might just have been giddy and tired as well.

The $3 Layover

Just back from a "Rocket" to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The layover is like all the other South America trips. You arrive in the morning, sleep all day, and then fly home. No time to really do anything. This is the $3 layover because that is all you spend on the trip. You give the van driver from the airport a dollar, the waiter at the hotel a dollar after the free breakfast, and another dollar to the van driver who takes you back to the airport.



I did make a great deal of progress on War and Peace, just passing the 700 page mark.